When should you send AR (end of transmission) before your callsign or after. I hear a lot of both ways. The way I do it is after I end with hw cpy? I send AR then the other callsign then mine and then KN. I hear some people sending that way others send AR after callsigns and before KN. If you get the way Im drifting.

To quote the 1972 edition of the ARRL Radio Amateur's Operating Manual:

"AR means "end of transmission." It is not necessarily an invitation to transmit. It simply signifies that the transmission is at an end. In message handling proceedure it has the special meaning: "end of message" and is used after the signature. AR is used after calling a station with which contact has not already been established. Thus if X6XXX has just finished a QSO, the calling proceedure would be: X6XXX DE YY7YYY AR. When X6XXX answers the new call he uses "K". YY7YYY DE X6XXX K."

For WIK..........

Why bother with BK which is over used and abused when K means "over". Moreover even K is not needed if for instance someone asks a question such as WB6WIK/6 DE AA6RH QTH IMI, The meaning is clear without a prosign at all.

Thanks all and I agree that there is no 100% sure way, but if people get picky between 73 and 73s (and I know the difference) or swr and swr's (which I don't understand). Swr's is plural for swr. There can be one swr per frequency or many swr's per band. But none the less I agree with you. I just listened to a tape (supposed test) that finished with callsign de callsign .-.-. -.--. AR KN. I suppose that is the correct way but I see that it is a waste to use it.

Also I should clarify if I must, if we were to work, the first go round I send hw cpy? I work a lot in the novice section on 40 and so I have made a few first qso contacts and so to spell it out more than just hw? is probably the thing to do. The second go round or more I start abbrieviating everything as much as possible. But not to much on the first. I do keep it short with rst,qth,name however. I am not racing anyone I would rather chew the rag than work somebody contest style anytime. Though working contests have recently caught my ear.

Reminds me of my early days in Navy Radioman school in 1963. I'd been a ham for about 4 years, so code was the least of my problems. However, the Navy (and I believe ALL of the military branches) took a dim view of using AR to mean anything but END OF WORK.

BT was "End of message", with more traffic to follow.AR was "End of work", no more traffic.K was "Over".

Of course, the Navy didn't recognize the question mark in Morse code, either. If you wanted to know how strong your signal was at the "other" end, you wouldn't say "QSA? K" -- you'd say "INT QSA K". After I got off Active Duty in 1966, I imagine some of my first QSOs were strange sounding!

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